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Reflections of the Hindi Film Mission Kashmir

Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Mission Kashmir, produced in 2000, is a romantic drama that portrays the unrest, violence, suffering and religious tensions surrounding Muslim militant struggles for Kashimir’s independence from India. The story unfolds when the Muslim separatist leader Malik-ul-khan executes a doctor, and his family, for treating Inayat Khan, a high-ranking police officer injured by a rebel mine. Subsequently, Inayat Khan’s son is seriously injured and doctors refuse to care for him, fearing their lives.

The Muslim Separatist Struggle Demonized Through Malik-ul-khan

After his son dies, Inayat Khan leads a unit of masked officers in an invasion of a village home besieged by Malik-ul-khan and his men, shooting the guilty and innocent rampantly. The lone civilian survivor, eleven-year-old, Altaaf, suffers deep trauma from witnessing the brutal slaying of his family.

Khan Leads Police on Deadly Raid of Village Home

Overburden with guilt and contrite, the Muslim Khan and his Hindu wife Neelima adopt Altaaf who slowly accepts them as his new parents; however, on discovering Khan’s mask in the house, Altaaf attempts to kill his adopted parents, but only succeeds in jumping out the window. Vowing eternal revenge, he transforms into a skilled assassin as a member of the rebel Muslim group led by Hilal Koshistani.  He juggles his reunion with his childhood sweetheart Sufiya, his loyalty to his mentor Koshistani, his affection for Neelima, and his hatred of Khan in mediating his commitment to Mission Kashmir.



Altaaf Grows into a Terrorist



The film attempts to capture some of the salient tragedies of the Kashmiri conflict, the world’s longest running dispute, triggered by the British partitioning of India.  Yasmiin Khan, writes in The Great Partition, “The secret Indo-Pakistan League campaigned doggedly for the ‘original Pakistan’ right into the earliest days of Independence, claiming that the British had ignored cultural and social considerations in their division of the country, that the separation of the two wings of Pakistan was illogical and that remaining portions of the ‘original Pakistan’, such as Delhi, UP and Kashmir should be released immediately” (p.102).

Khan Rushes to Foil Altaaf's Terrorist Attack

The film carried some poignant narratives that caught my critical attention. Firstly, the perennial mother and son intimacy fostered through varied manifestations of the Freudian oedipal complex returns again in Mission Kashmir. From the moment Neelima adopts Altaaf as her son, the bond becomes sacrosanct, and only Neelima’s loyalty to the state can match it.  To Neelima’s , Inayat Khan’s role as the husband is subordinated to that of Altaaf as the errant son. As Inayat Khan tells her following her sequester with Altaaf, “Blood will be split now mine or Altaaf.”  He presents her dilemma even more lucidly by asking her, “Whose blood do you want it to be, you husband’s or your son’s?”

Khan and Neelima Troubled By Altaaf' Rebelious Preoccupation

Neelima also perpetuates the early Hindi cinema’s cliché of framing the mother as the conscience of the nation. Despite her intense love for her son, Altaaf, she reluctantly forsakes him in loyalty to the nation, beckoning him to abandon his subversive agenda. “On one side is love, on the other hatred. On one side is compassion on the other terror, good or evil, brutality of humanity” she tells him. Ironically, apart from serving as a plea to Altaaf, Neelima’s admonitions work to establish rigid and biased political agenda. By framing the Kashmir issue in such stark binary opposites, she over simplifies and nullifies many of the complex and deep seated and legitimate conflicts that drive such passionate jingoism.

Neelima Disobeys Khan and Meets Secretly with Altaaf

Alternatively, the film deviates from popular representation of Indian masculinity in Hindi films. Hindi films are generally not shy to show their male protagonists expressing emotion; in fact, many classic Hindi films present men sobbing or in full blown tears, but Mission Kashmir presents a hyper-masculine image of, Inayat Khan. When Altaaf reminds Khan of his deceased son, he runs to the room latches the door at his back and sobs privately. The underlying principle appears to be: if Inayat Khan is to be the protector of the nation then he must not be too emotional, for that is being weak. 

Khan Must Choose Between His Son and the State

Notwithstanding the deviation, the film does not challenge the patriarchal order or masculine stereotypes in any major way, if anything it often reinforces it. When Altaaf reflects on the impact that his terrorist actions would have on Sufiya, Koshistani tells him, “During Jihad, a warrior only has friendships with men, child.” On the surface this phallocentric framing of militancy highlights the subordination of women in Islamic culture; however when read against the agency given to  Mali in the film Terrorist, it works more as a critique of Altaaf’s ability to negotiate his feelings for Sufiya within his terrorist ethos.

Altaaf and Sufiya Childhood Romance Blossoms in Their Adulthood

The film also hypersensitizes audience to the extreme suffering and loss that continues to shape the Kashmiri conflict. Entire families are decimated and those that are left are disrupted or displaced; yet, within all this carnage there is also a semblance of normalcy, a quant order of everyday life. So many characters in the film have lost their family members, but they eventually work around containing their pain and trauma.  The loss mobilizes some victims to reactionary politics, while others appear to smother it in amnesia. For example, when Sufiya beckons Altaaf to tell her his troubles he responds, “I can’t feel anything. I can’t see beauty.” His impassivity points to the effects of trauma that Virdi refers to.

Sufiya's Love is Insufficient for Rehabilitating Altaaf

The film attends to religious conflict both insidiously and overtly in its plot. If Innayat Khan’s role as the nation’s IG, is extended allegorically to represent governmental authority, then Khan and Neelima’s interreligious marriage becomes an allegory for registering the Indian nation’s secular nationalistic policies and tolerance, if not encouragement, of religious integration. Their union registers as a promise of the future, which becomes poignant when Astaaf asks Innayat Khan, “How come you are Muslim and you married a Hindu girl?” Interestingly, religious differences are at the core of the conflicts, and the film does not deny that. Inadvertently, Mission Kashmir, as a Hindi film, frames the Muslim militants as a dishonorable and unscrupulous group of bandits. This was most profound when Koshistani executed one of his men for chastising Altaaf on his chilly manipulation of Sufiya’s love in service of the Jihad. After shooting the man in cold blood, Koshistani lies to his comrades that the man committed suicide in the service of the mission.

The Evil Eyes of Malik-ul-khan

At the heart of these narrative structures lies the foregrounding of the genuine distrust and anxieties among, Muslim, Sikhs, and Hindus, in constructing and nurturing the Indian nation. The film frequently points to casts differences and prejudices as fueling conflict. When the government bureaucrat, The Hindu, Mr. Despande, invokes the national tragedy of Indira Ghandi’s slaying, to question Khan’s loyalty to his country, threatening to remove the PM’s security from under his control, Kahn is outraged that his patriotism is being questioned. He indignantly rejects Mr. Despande’s orders, reminding him that as a Muslim police officer, he too has lost a son to the national unrests.

Who will pull the trigger?

This scene can be read closely with the scene of the two police officers, a Sikh and a Hindi, following the raid of the militant camp in search of Altaaf. When the Sikh police officer reprimands his Hindi colleague on his revengeful and bitter shooting of the militants, he responds by recounting the violence his family suffered at the hands of Muslims, noting “You do not understand because you are not a Kashmiri.” The Sikh responds by sharing stories of the massacre of his families by Hindus.  The resounding lesson from this exchange is that all Indians must negotiate their tragic past to allow for forgiveness that promotes service to the nation.

Altaaf Prepares to Launch Deadly Terrorist Missile

Finally, the film sustains common production techniques employed in Hindi films narrative structures. Flashbacks and the dream sequence operate to foreground visceral struggles and contextualize emotional and moral quagmires. In one of these episodes, Altaaf says,” I am doing all this for my religion,” to which Sufi responds, “Islam does not condone killing innocent people.”